


Athena

by Nemhaine42



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Relationship, i think you're okay for spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/pseuds/Nemhaine42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I just wanted to write more wintershock after seeing CA:CW!</p>
<p>Bucky accidentally winds up hiding in a burlesque club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Athena

Bucky picked the first place that had no doorman and still looked open. He barrelled through the door and in off the wet and windy street. He’d only stay a little while to get out of the rain, to be sure that police car would stop circling the block looking for him. He was quite sure it was just an ordinary squad car, driven by ordinary policemen, but he wanted to avoid detection altogether. If he were on local law enforcement’s radar, he could be on anybody’s. So here he was, dripping rainwater all over the front mat of some well-meaning establishment and being stared at by the young woman with a lot of tattoos running the coat check. 

 

Now that he actually looked around the place, maybe it wasn’t as well-meaning as it could have been. The outside hadn’t looked like much but the interior was perhaps catering to a more specific clientele than he might pass for. He wondered if, should they try to move him on, it would be better to make a fuss to be allowed to stay, or to leave and find somewhere else to hide. But the girl at the coat check called for the host - a large heavy-set black man with a nametag reading ‘Jax’ - to sit him. Bucky was shown to a table towards the middle of the floor but he pointed to a booth at the back and asked to be seated there instead. Jax shrugged and walked him over. 

 

“You’ll see better further forward,” he suggested, “we ain’t too busy.”

 

Bucky shook his head and tucked himself into the round booth. Jax told him someone would be over to him shortly and left. Bucky wished he’d found a busier bar, and one th at was perhaps less of a niche market. He looked up to the stage where a scantily-clad young woman was coming to the end of a warbling song. She twirled and gyrated around her microphone stand like  it was an entirely different piece of apparatus, much to the delight of the patrons directly in front of the stage. A waif-like, blonde waitress set a tray of drinks down on one table, where a man tucked a few bills down the front of her corset. 

 

A different girl - shorter, curvier, dark-haired - approached his table, swinging her hips. She was wearing a similar, burlesque kind of get-up; a pale pink corset with black ribbons and a black skirt that failed utterly to cover even the tops of her stockings. 

 

“Hey, there. Still raining out?” she greeted in a lilting, sickly-sweet voice that most women used on strangers at work, “You look like you’ve had kind of a rough night. I brought you a towel, is there anything I can get you to drink?”

 

She set a not-so-freshly laundered towel on his table and looked at him, batting her eyelashes. For  a single moment, recognition passed across her face but it either vanished or was ignored a second later. She seemed like a nice girl, maybe not one his mother would have been overjoyed with, working here and all, and he didn’t want to cause trouble. Her nametag read ‘Athena.’

 

“Just water,” he said in a low voice, not inviting conversation. She turned with a nod and went to leave, somewhat sadly. He called after her, stopping her mid-stride, “Wait… Can I get a coffee?”

 

“Sure thing, sweetie,” she said with a smile. A real one. 

 

When she turned back, he patted his hands over the towel she’d provided to check and make sure there was nothing inside. He ran it over his hair, taking off the worst of the water. He watched as Athena gathered up his coffee, pouring out a tiny jug of cream and putting other bits and pieces on a tray, all while being hovered over by another man, this time with salt-and-pepper hair. The two kept glancing in Bucky’s direction and whispering tersely. Scoping out the rest of the bar, he caught sight of his reflection in a mirrored column: he looked awful. He swiped his damp hair back off his face and shucked his sodden jacket, keeping his backpack safely between his knees. There wasn’t much he could do about the fact that he hadn’t had a shave in more than a week but maybe now he looked less startlingly like a vagrant. A new girl was singing now, rather less well but with greater lasciviousness towards the microphone. 

 

Athena brought his coffee with a little bar of dark chocolate and tilted herself over the table, making sure her cleavage was clearly displayed. Bucky was quick to his left hand under the table, belatedly realising that could be misinterpreted. But Athena either didn’t notice or didn’t care, she flipped her hair and exposed the white skin on her neck. 

 

“Technically the kitchen’s closed,” she informed him, “but the chef took off like an hour ago. No-one would notice if I rustled you up something.”

 

She’d angled herself so that her boss, still watching from the bar, could not make out what they were talking about, he only saw Athena using the same wanton body language she was supposed to use on everybody that came in here. Bucky didn’t know much about women’s employment in this century but it seemed a poor way to earn a living. Maybe guys sticking their hands under the table wasn’t even anything new to her. She leaned forward onto the table to whisper, “don’t worry if you can’t pay for it. I’ll help you out.”

 

Bucky smiled at her and reached into his back pocket to carefully extract a bill several times the value of his coffee and slid it over the table to her. He made sure to hide from view the wad of cash he’d lifted from the last safehouse. He couldn’t have her thinking he was a criminal, which he only partially was. 

 

“Keep it,” he told her and held her eye contact, not letting his gaze slip lower. She was still concerned for him but smiled and went back to work, passing by another table where an elderly man spoke entirely to her breasts. Bucky doubted she was so generous to all her customers, especially not when, fifteen minutes later, a chicken salad sandwich was subtly placed on his table as she swung by. She felt sorry for him. She must have done or she wouldn’t have kept on feeding him coffee every time he drained his cup. He sat for hours, watching - or pretending to watch - girl after girl on stage singing, playing guitar, playing piano; some with more talent than others but all in an intimate state of undress. Bucky felt a little shameful looking at them but he was expected to in this place. He was glad he never saw Athena up there though.  

 

He stayed until long after the last of the other patrons had gone and no other girl took the stage. Athena had cleared his table, leaving him with only the last drink of water he’d requested. She finally approached him with her purse on her shoulder and her coat draped over one arm. 

 

“I don’t want to kick you out but… my boss does,” she explained, gesturing over to where the man was putting chairs up onto tables, “if it’s any consolation, he’s kicking me out too.”

 

She set her purse on the tabletop, right in front of him, so she could put on her jacket. Her bag was right where he could grab it and run for the door, or where he could see a mile away if she had a weapon in there. So civilian. 

 

“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here kind of thing?” Bucky said with a sad smile. 

 

“Something like that. You got a home to go  _ to _ ?”

 

“For now,” he said. He had a place, a downtrodden little room in a part of town where no-one asked questions. The trail he was following would take him away from America, which was probably a good thing, but not yet. He pulled on his now only slightly damp jacket and got up, keeping a tight grip on his backpack. 

 

“You need help getting there, or…?” Athena wondered. 

 

“Nah, I’m good, thanks.”

 

They both walked to the door, with Athena hollering goodbyes to her boss and Jax. The coat check girl was long gone. When they stepped outside the rain had stopped but puddles still filled the spaces under the curbs. He heard the door being locked behind them and he stood there; he wasn’t lost by any means but he was in no real rush. Athena waved him goodbye and started walking off down the street. That should have been it. 

 

“Are you gonna walk home all by yourself?” Bucky called. She turned back towards him. She looked different now, in the streetlight - smaller, paler, younger. Her coat covered the corset and the skirt and the tops of her stockings, and she’d swapped out her black pumps for a pair of worn, tough leather boots. 

 

“I’ll be okay, it’s only five blocks,” she pointed down the road. It wasn’t as bad a part of town as Bucky was staying in but it was close. 

 

“I’ll walk you,” he said, taking a few steps to catch up with her but not offering her his arm. She was on his left. She didn’t make any further protest and started walking quietly. Bucky didn’t know what time it was, but it was late enough that the streets were practically empty but for a stray cat here and there and occasional cars that sloshed through the puddles. 

 

“You like living around here?” Bucky asked, not believing that she could. Half the streetlights didn’t work and there was trash piled up between dinged up cars. 

 

“Not really but,” she shrugged, “a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. And it’s not forever. Me and my friend, our research grant comes through at the start of next month so we’ll move someplace else. This is just to keep a roof over our heads for a while.”

 

“What’s your real name?” he asked, almost without his own permission. After a pause he added, “you don’t have to tell me.”

 

“It’s Darcy.”

 

“I’m-”  _ your name is James Buchanan Barnes _ “-my name is Bucky.”

 

Darcy stopped walking, looking at him with a mixture of concern and guilt, “I know.”

 

“Believe it or not, I majored in Political Science,” she told him, “I know who James Barnes was… is.”

 

Bucky fixed her with a searching stare, suddenly very nervous. She was most definitely a civilian. How did she know him, or at least know enough to not be surprised that he wasn’t dead. Surely long dead soldiers didn’t crop up on her shift all the time. So far no-one else had looked at him as anything other than some lowlife. 

 

“After DC…” she explained, fidgeting awkwardly, “the Black Widow leaked a lot of SHIELD files onto the internet, including Hydra files on you. I didn’t read all of them, and probably most normal people didn’t look at all but… that information is out there. All of it. Just so you know.”

 

If that was true then it was doubly important that he stay ahead of the authorities, any authorities. He had a trail to follow to Europe and it would be better if he went quickly from now on. 

 

“I have to go,” he said. 

 

“Okay. Good luck,” she offered with a smile, “Oh! If you see Steve, tell him Thor left those good handwraps with Jane. That’s not a code or anything - we don’t know how to wash them properly so… they stink and he needs to come and get them, if he wants them.”

 

She nodded one last time and waved again, crossing the road to continue home. He needed to go, needed to get moving. But he couldn’t leave a job unfinished. And it would be rude. 

 

He ran across the street, back to Darcy’s side, this time wordlessly holding out his left arm for her to take. She practically wrapped her whole self around it, with the metal able to sense the bones of her corset through the fabric of her jacket and his. She smiled happily at him, glad to have someone to walk her home safe. They passed a couple of darkened figures - just average criminal louts - and were summarily ignored by a passing police car. There was nothing amiss about some scruffy-looking dude walking his slutty-dress lady friend through the rough end of town in the middle of the night, apparently. 

 

He walked her right up to the stoop of a beaten, old townhouse that had been split into tiny apartments, where he could see a light had been left on for Darcy inside. 

 

“This is me,” she said, as if it was some delightful country retreat. She felt around in her purse for her keys, before hopping up to the top step and turning to face him, “Thanks, Bucky. You know I won’t tell anyone about this, right? Unless you want me to.”

 

He shook his head no, “I really have to go.”

 

“Okay,” she said, darting forward to peck a kiss on his cheek, “secret’s safe with me.”

 

She disappeared off into the house, leaving nothing but a series of clicks of locking doors and a faintly stunned Bucky on the step. He really, really had to go. He took a few steps back down off the stair and looked up at the lights being turned on and off as Darcy got herself settled. He made sure to be out of sight when she peeped through the old lace curtains. That would just be the icing on the cake; for her to know him as a homeless guy, a formerly-brainwashed assassin,  _ and _ a creepy stalker. 

  
  



End file.
